Major League Soccer management in Football Manager is a nightmare. Let's talk about why. More here: fmprojects.sub... #fm24 #footballmanager2024 #footballmanager
Every month i start thinking about playing in the mls and then randomly give up on it lol i love managing in nba or nfl in videogamez but the mls makes no sense to me cause these rules only work when your league in the best in the world
American sports leagues are like fast food chains having an internal competition. It's your McDonald's playing a soccer match against the McDonald's across town. Great video man! Side note, you're looking at your script alot during the parts where the camera is on you, try to memorize the parts of your script when we we can see your face so we don't see you checking it
While this is somewhat true, the other leagues are all way easier to understand than the MLS. You just sign X amount of players up to a certain salary limit. The MLS has that plus 300 other insane rules and exceptions that no one can understand.
@@instantclassic9232 Because the other leagues don't have to worry about attracting better players from the rest of the world, who can get paid better elsewhere.
I did a few seasons in the mls. It's the trade thing that stops it being enjoyable - not being able to sign other American players freely stops it being fun.
My solution usually was to let my general manager make an offer for me. For example, if a player’s value was at 5 million and I had 5 million in General Allocation Money, then I’d ask my GM to make an offer worth 5 million in the trade menu, and it would usually be a mix of General Allocation Money, Draft Picks, and International Slots. I’d say 60-70% of the time it works, but there are times where clubs just don’t want to trade their players and there’s nothing you can do about it, which sucks.
I tried... And I got it. Took me practice, some retries, some knowlege of USA leagues and routines (and I mean, NFL/NBA knowlege) But, took me a excel help, because I don't like of the way of FM calculates the salary cap at all, nor only the MLS. And what I discover its shocking: Nor only us can have difficult with the rules, but the AI suffer a lot, witch makes the league surprisingly easy. Mid season in my first season for real and I got immediaty on All Star team Coach. You can pretty much bulid a good team quick if you are smart, scout the draft and use the annual alocation money do the rest for ya. But, I recomend taking over in the start of the season. If you try to take command in the middle, you will easily find yourself with your hands tied. But, it does. You need patience, it's one of the most complicated challenges in the game, but it can be done.
salary cap is good though seen in the nba but the 3 player rule makes it fall apart. if the nba had that they can have 3 top stars count outside the salary cap and win every year like man citeh.
it's pretty easy to change the salary cap in the FM editors as well as change the baseline for contract values, but it's stupud they haven't programed the MLS salary cap to grow beyond what the league has announced
Interesting side note (for South Africans mostly) South African legend, Jomo Sono played in the New York Cosmos team with Pele and later went on to open his own football club, Jomo Cosmos
I love MLS and have probably been to over 300 mls games over 15 years. If the league continues to improve at the rate it is, more dpi/higher salary caps are inevitable.
I hate the idea that MLS doesn't have promotion/Relegation because their isn’t enough teams. The League of Ireland runs a promotion/relegation system with just 20 teams, ten in the top/Premier Division,ten in the second/First Division
I could see the only relegation system happening to players only. Like in Major League baseball, if a player is playing bad there team sends them down a level.
american sports is all about viewership for ads and hype, if a team relegates the's a real risk of the low viewership in the lower league which advertisers despise and losing "hype" which could damage the brand and franchise. imagine they implement relegation and your team is the first to relegate, it'll stain the brand history.
@@basementsage1443 well many leagues dont even have a second league, like Hockey or the NFL. Most of the smaller leagues are just practice leagues for the top teams. They hardly even have fans. So promotion relegation just would not work. The only sports league in the USA with semi promotion relegation is College Football.
Classic little islander... you try traveling across the country as a lower division team with lower division money. This isn't Ireland or England where a 4hour trip is considered a holiday.. What happens when all the teams in the northeast get relegated? Guess you can drive 14hrs ONE way to watch a top division match.... tough luck sonny! Can you imagine Messi having to fly into Des Moines Iowa Airport? 💀
I would love a database that takes almost all the MLS-ness out of the MLS and makes it more European. Keep the conferences, but let me sign who I want to sign without all the fuss of being like "you don't have the money to do that" when in fact, as a club worth a billion dollars, I in fact do have the money to sign who I want. Remove the registration rules, too, they're just obstacles to fun.
Good video, love seeing footage of the NASL! I think eventually a big North American league will break itself into upper and lower divisions and have promotion and relegation between them. Probably the NBA, because they're doing a European-style in-season tournament, and the league is already divided into an upper and lower tier based on who pays the luxury tax and who tanks. If the owners get some data that says more people will tune in and buy tickets if there is a pro/rel-like system. they will make the change.
Even when I stick it out and have a few seasons in MLS the reason I quit the save time and time again is ..... youth development. For me that is a major part of why I play and MLS just doesn't do 'youth development'.
I wanted to do a San Jose save because I’m a San Jose fan and 2 hours in I was so incredibly lost I just gave up and did a save with a Mexican team instead
That's not true? In the United States' last call up (March 24, 2024 v. Mexico). The United States squad had 4 MLS players (Sean Johnson, Miles Robinson, Shaq Moore, and Timothy Tillman). In the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the United States had 8 MLS players (Sean Johnson, Kellyn Acosta, DeAndre Yedlin, Shaq Moore, Cristian Roldan, Jordan Morris, Aaron Long, Jesus Ferreira, and Walker Zimmerman).
Much of the video pointed out MLS' real life issues...and I can't argue with them, but why managing the MLS in FM sucks was not talked about enough. I can't tell if the issue is poor SI programing or a limitation of FM "operating system" but vanilla MLS in FM always has bugs, some of which have been knowingly carried over by SI from one version of FM to the other. (Think about that for a second) The issue with FM is that they attempted to replicate the unique MLS rules and had to "hard code" not just MLS but CONCACAF also. For example, the video talked about using "modded" databases to get a good American league experience, but because of the hardcoding that SI has done all of those modded databases that I've tried (or I created myself in the past) have issues because of various issues caused by the hardcoding. For example, you can "retire" the MLS in it's current form and recreate a new top American division, but that new American league has to have at least 24 teams in it otherwise the new league will not be be able to play in CONCACAF Champions League. Then because of the previous hardcoding of player contracts there are contract issues with the modded leagues. Anyone who has tried to mod the MLS or American soccer will tell you that the "hardcoding" impacts the "new" league many times in unexpected ways. SI could help with this issue by giving us a "generic" MLS...along the lines that other soccer video games do because you don't see anyone else trying to implement the correct MLS rules in their game. What I mean by that is just give us a league that has no hardcoding, one were we can edit the league and make it what we want. I mean if they could code the MLS correctly I'd deal with the rules and play the league. But they've really NEVER been able to do that. SI clearly just doesn't give a crap about about the MLS, otherwise they would fix the bugs that have been carried over from previous versions.
The Mets were formed because there was a threat to form a third major league around 1959 - 1960. They decided to stick a new National League team in New York to prevent another league from sticking a team out there. They took that step because it was clear that there was a market for more than one baseball team in New York. There had been 3 there before the Giants and Dodgers went west. The Yankees, by the way, only showed up in New York as part of the fighting between the American and National Leagues in 1901 and 1902. Ban Johnson wanted to stick a team in New York to challenge the New York Giants. Once again, it was the accident of history that caused this to happen. You can find more on my baseball page: baseballreplayjournal.substack.com
It's difficult. Takes some time to built the squad the way you want. There's a ton of parity so the team with most money means nothing. I get why FM players don't like it. It takes a lot of work.
I truly think if they just did what we do in Europe they would be fine Just create an amateur league and grow from there ... Easy in 1 or 2 decades you will have a amazing atmosphere with 1 first divisions and at least 4/5 leagues deep You already have the players development kinda sorted with university sports ... So the love for the game would win In Europe love for football moves the game, not money ... Money just win inside the game, doesn't create it
The interesting thing is that the United States did have amateur leagues, once upon a time. There were amateur and semipro regional leagues all across the country. The American Soccer League was an attempt in the 1920s by big business interests to turn everything professional. They abandoned it once the money started to dry up. The NASL came in during the mid-1960s, and was another attempt by big business to completely ignore the actual history of the sport in the United States and just dump money on top of everything. It was built up quickly, and fell apart just as fast. I agree with you. I think that a European system would absolutely work in the United States, if it were given the chance to develop and flourish. The frustration is that there's this constant emphasis and demand for quick profits. If we had a little bit of patience, things would work out just fine.
The US has lower tier football, but unfortunately the US Soccer Federation has intentionally hamstrung it in favour of the MLS, designating it a 2nd tier competition. The USL Championship and USL League One are 2nd and 3rd tier competitions with 24 and 12 teams in it, with promotion/relegation between the competitions. Adjacent to the 3rd tier competition is also the National Independent Soccer Association, another professional league with 9 teams. It is also national. The US has a framework that, should the franchise system be reworked and promotion/relegation be implemented, it could have a very rich, deep, league system that would create more local professional teams that would make the sport so much more accessible for fans, but because the MLS benefits so heavily from the closed shop franchise system, they'd never agree to any changes that would hinder their ability to make money.
I know us have other leagues apart from the mls But they are different competition Now only the fans have the power to change that I not to family with the usl, i don't know what is different from European leagues ... But if similar, just make usl fan base bigger And specially, making the young players in favor of the usl over msl and slowly it will overtake msl If the fans feel connected to the club and have some power over his future, it will be almost like a religion
Its not about being uncompetitive. They want to grow the national game and local american talents and the colleges. If they had an uncapped wage system it wouldnt be too long until everyteam had ZERO american players starting for their teams. Once they grow the quality of the young american players they can then allow the three or four foreign players that is pretty much what most european leagues do anyway with non europeans. If they had no cap teams would go bust chasing success as it isnt sustainable as they would grow unnaturally faster than the viewership increases
"If they had an uncapped wage system it wouldnt be too long until everyteam had ZERO american players starting for their teams." Yeah - I'm going to have to stop you there. Please explain to me why other countries that do not have a salary cap (i.e. almost every country in the world) do not also have zero domestic players starting for their teams.
@@danielevensen84 America is a very rich country, and it is a desireable place to live. If they had no local player requirements like England or Spain or Italy and had an uncapped salary restriction, there are a million better players available than the local USA talent so there wouldn’t be enough decent USA talents to play. You can see in England a lot of the best teams only have English players as they are required too by law. Of course a few are good enough but not enough to fill a league. This is why players like steve sidwell goes to Chelsea and sits on the bench and never plays for one example
Why is it overly complicated and not just a simple copy & paste of other leagues? I'm on about real life, not the game. Just seems complicated for the sake of being complicated.
As an American who as a kid loved and wanted to play soccer I will tell you why soccer just isn't popular over here. "dad can you sign me up for a soccer team" me at 7ish years old. "No, soccer is g**, and you aren't g**. You will play baseball and basketball. Those are sports for real men."
MINOR NITPICKS: "I find it amazing that my home state of Utah can easily support three major college football team but only a single professional soccer team" Utah has more than one professional soccer team. Real Salt Lake, Real Monarchs, Salt City SC, Utah Avalanche and Utah United are all professional football clubs who play in the state of Utah, albeit only one top flight professional football club exists in Utah. "Nobody in America will pay attention to anything but the highest level of play" I mean, even though the USL clubs are incredibly small, somebody is still watch it. The fact it can continue to exist means there's room for it.
The Real Monarchs are the youth team of Real Salt Lake. I've never heard of the other 3 teams, and defy you to show me anybody in the area who has. The 3 college football teams I'm referring to all play at the highest level - and even Utah State can outdraw RSL on a regular basis. This wouldn't be the case if the league used a structure that created actual competition between the teams. This is what we get when sports are set up using a monopolistic structure straight out of the Gilded Age.
Salary cap is the only good thing in American sports! Because european football is out of control! So many teams dont make any money because of the inlfated salaries and transfer fees. Salary cap should be implimented across europe. Salary cap would help competitiveness, not the other way around. At least in NHL (hockey) is more competitive now that you need to let go some of your star players because you want to sign another start player to a bigger contract but cant fit it under the cap. It's not just the money why American players come to europe. It's because we have the best leagues here. Same way our hockey and basketball players want to go to NHL and NBA. If I was running European football I would impliment at least a soft salary cap and make every league adopt the german 50+1 rule. No more country own clubs ruining competition! And if the european football players dont like a salary cap they can f*ck off to Saudia Arabia for all I care.
The reason why it's not fun in FM is because of how it's structured in real life. FM tries to replicate that structure, turning your FM save into a chore.
Not even close to be the richest country in the world. Still bullcrap rules. Played 4 seasons with Seattle. It gets more clear and better after a season or two when the rules get cemented in your memory but I will never again play in the US.
I am 12 years into my MLS save. I religiously watch MLS so it’s easy for me. I’ve won everything there is to win. Just love the league. But it took me 2 years (FM 20/21) to understand rules on game and IRL. Can imagine for others who are casual is insanely difficult.
LOL....I think he was referring to the fact that he US has had the top economy in the world for awhile which is rated by a country's overall GDP. You're probably referring to the per capita GDP and yes there are a hand full of countries that have a higher GDP per capita than the US (per capita GDP the US ranks around 7th in the world), but all of them trail the US overall GDP ....by at least 25 T-R-I-L-L-I-O-N US dollars and none of those countries actually has a GDP of over 1 trillion US dollars. Hell, California by itself has an overall GDP that would place it in the top 10 in the world if it was a country. The US overall GDP is more than the entire EU so you can see where he was coming from. To put this all into context, every country in the world, with the exception of China, trailed the US in overall GDP by at least 20 trillion US dollars. China trailed the US by around 8 trillion. LOL (edited to correct spelling)
As a Brit Of a Smaller Team The Salary cap sounds pretty good Because in all honesty the premier league is won every year by The UAE Wearing a Manchester City Shirt
I'd argue that my club - Detroit City FC - buck the trends you've cited. No big-money backing, huge supporter base, active culture; founded by five thousandaires in 2012, and now in the second division. But the powers-what-is have been, and continue to be, a roadblock at every turn. US Soccer is a captured regulatory body, as is FIFA. Sigh
There's a benefit, but it doesn't mean clubs/teams are smart with them. The Edmonton Oilers had soooo many first round draft picks for a few years straight and only one player is still on the team. It still took them about a decade to get out of the gutter.
Nothing new, and that's good. Look at Premier League - relegated clubs are getting parachute payments. Also TV rights are split evenly when United or Arsenal are bringing much more to the brand them let say Luton or Ipswitch. Only diferencial is how often your game are shown in TV (in UK). But clubs who Play that game have cash splited by half.
@@МиланЖивковић-к9ъfalse, forcing teams to have the same budget, thus making teams equal is literally socialism, that's why Man City doesn't like the new proposals for the premier League, imagine if Man City couldn't have both Haaland and Grealish, they can only have one whether it be because of budget restrictions or parity, one of them has to go to Wolverhampton or Fulham.
The salary cap isn't because teams are poor but is intended to promote competition which you can argue works as there are 8 MLS Cup winners in the last decade...
@@danielevensen84 I think they are in a bit of strange position sustainability wise and a lot of the exceptions are just attempts to try and grow the league. But in regards to competitiveness the cap system does seem to work better than what we see in Europe's top leagues where it's almost always the same clubs winning. It obviously doesn't translate well to the games but I also think it's because FM isn't doesn't put enough emphasis on ensuring players are working within the rules. An admin assistant who took care to notify and highlight these rules whenever you're signing players or renewing contracts would help massively.
The reason for the salary cap has always been to stop domestic players from negotiating the best contract for themselves. It exists to suppress wages. Competition isn't the intention, controlling player costs is and was. If it wasn't, they'd do away with single entity and allow players to be free agents.
@@danielevensen84I think that they have to deal with the fact, that they are not biggest league in football. The American system is designed around leagues, that are the uncontested biggest league of that sport in the world. In football they have to tweak it here and there to make it compatible with the rest of the world
@@michaelfarrow5817 For Football/soccer the league is kinda screwed but they 100% did it with intention of competition. I am glad other american sports have free agents.
Not only are the MLS rules arcane and confusing, but Sports Interactive also doesn’t implement them the right way. The save always falls apart after a few years.
Asking the real questions. Seriously - I've been watching broadcasts of old NASL games, and am flabbergasted by how complicated the commentators make the sport sound. It's a simple sport. You can learn how football is played by watching it for like 30 minutes, lol.
I think you're forgetting one crucial aspect: exclusivity and demand in this capitalist world. Exclusivity sells, and the reason why American sports teams sell for so much more is that the value of their franchise is significantly higher. If an upstart wants to buy into a league rather than create its own club, it has to pay a premium. For example, in 2013, when Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers, was found making a racial slur, the board of owners voted to kick him out of the league and forced him to sell. Despite the Clippers' net worth and value being at $600 million, he sold the team for $1.3 billion. This happened for two reasons like you mentioned extensively there are far more guarantees for profit in the long run. Most American sports teams actually lose money year over year where they money is made in that sale is where the money is
And yet, bad teams can still be terrible, and good ones can still be good. At the cost of not allowing teams to spend 1 billion dollars to get the best players...
Yall are such complainers, fm player with a 20+ year save in the mls it’s not that bad you just can’t get your “favorite” or “known” player you have to actually scout you DP don’t have to be old guys they can literally be wonder kids that have developed into WC players. My only issue with the mls is that you can’t loan in domestic players and the only way to buy other domestic players is through trades but once you learn how they work it’s actually kinda fun with the draft. But it’s easier to complain so go do an easy save like in germany with basically no rules 😂😭
I really hate playing the US league because of the rules. I really hope they copy a better working league. Even if it's sign max 3-5 non domestic players, and have to fill the rest of the roster with domestic only players. Current rules are too convoluted
I just always wished the MLS was like every other American sport and no restrictions on how many foreign players you have. If you want a team full of u23 south Americans, cool.
As an American who loves fm. Every year I’m like alright gonna sit down and do a save in mls and learn the contracts. I start and l look at them and I’m like fuck it. Gonna go play in some lesser known league and have fun. 😅
This is what's wrong with the NHL. The problem is Hockey in other areas just isn't as competitive, like Football is in the rest of the world. All the flashy players go to the NHL.
8:31 not really... my whole league is losing important sum of money everyday. Until someday it gonna break. So i don't think the soccer model is a good one. Just look at Man U.
The one thing I do, is I try and trade for permanent international slots. Then in a couple years, you will have enough for your dream team, and can rent them off for players or money or draft picks. Its free money if u hold the monopoly.
Off Topic, but here's what I want from FM. I want to OWN a Team. I want to OWN a Team way down at the bottom, and dream of doing all the things to get it to the top. Maybe I hire the Coaches, or maybe I hit the pitch and Coach myself. Maybe I hire a GM, or maybe I handle all that GM stuff myself. But it's MY Team. I own it. No Board, no one to kick me out. I'm here until I die. Give me that Owner Option. Let me establish relationships with other Owners, let me dictate what I find to be the acceptable goals. Let me decide if that Coach goes and gets a License... or if I send myself for one. Let me set the Ticket Prices, let me decide if we're building a Youth Academy and how invested we're going to be in it. FM is great, it's already a really good game. But that's the game I'd like. It's better than Madden or NBA, because there is no relegation there. You own the Team, but it can never go anywhere... it's already the only place it can be, in THAT one League. But in Soccer, we can go up a ladder, we can go down a ladder... we can go up numerous floors to find ourselves out on the rooftop yelling our barbaric yawp. THAT'S INTERESTING. Being the Spurs or the Patriots, not so interesting. But being a Team that can Relegate, or climb... THAT IS SOMETHING!
Got fired one saved from who knows where, got hired mid way through the season with ohio won the title. Them immediately quit after trying to understand thier transfer system
actually, there is one major reason for salary cap and the like: to stop teams from LA, NY and Chicago/Miami from dominating the league. No good player would play for a milwaukee or minnesota team if offered the same salary to play in ny or miami one of the few things I like more about the USA sports system is exactly this, it make for a more competitive/balanced league; except for real madrid or barcelona fans, which spanish fan base could possibly enjoy the spanish league? It has no competition after the 1980's, except for the occasional valencia/atletico title if it was up to me, a salary cap would be implemented in every league
I understand the sentiment - but there's a major problem with that point of view. Where did Beckham play? Los Angeles. If you want a strict salary cap, make a strict cap. Don't make a strict cap with exceptions that were carved out for the rich teams to allow them to pay millions of dollars for declining players. The Designated Player exception was created specifically so teams from major markets could make large signings - which completely contradicts the reason for the existence of the salary cap.
@@danielevensen84 Yep, my point is more to the phrase "the richest country in the world should not have a salary cap in its league" the reason for the MLS exception is to make football attractive there, but it doesn't seem to matter, nobody cares about in the usa; if it were to become popular, those exceptions would be gone in a short amount of time, like they did in the NBA to prevent steve ballmer from outspending half the league on his own with a new cba agreement
You could just watch how many people come to visit the other teams every week and see how many other Spanish football fans there is that enjoys watching football there. And good players dont play in the MLS unless they are excluded from the salary cap.
@@88balloonsonthewall70 you are mixing oranges and apples here. Good players won't go there because football is irrelevant (and, therefore, poorly financed compared to the other major sports) in the US And people going to games is also imaterial to my point: why would you like your team to be a punching bag for two teams? Competition is much fiercer in the us sports compared to europe
@@arthur2588aspm Footballers follow the money, and a salary cap takes away money from good footballers. Football is a way of life here, people watch the games because they love the sport, and they love their team. How fierce is it really when the bottom teams doesn't even have to care, they wont be relegated and next season they will have better draft picks. The US system rewards bad teams.
Every year I sit and read through the rules to start a save and every year I quit an hour into a save
Every month i start thinking about playing in the mls and then randomly give up on it lol i love managing in nba or nfl in videogamez but the mls makes no sense to me cause these rules only work when your league in the best in the world
@@vagnonciooagreed
American sports leagues are like fast food chains having an internal competition. It's your McDonald's playing a soccer match against the McDonald's across town. Great video man!
Side note, you're looking at your script alot during the parts where the camera is on you, try to memorize the parts of your script when we we can see your face so we don't see you checking it
I thought the fast food you were talking about was a joke about americas problems but your actually right
A teleprompter app can be used behind the camera for that, although I did not notice that in this video.
While this is somewhat true, the other leagues are all way easier to understand than the MLS. You just sign X amount of players up to a certain salary limit. The MLS has that plus 300 other insane rules and exceptions that no one can understand.
@@instantclassic9232 Because the other leagues don't have to worry about attracting better players from the rest of the world, who can get paid better elsewhere.
I did a few seasons in the mls. It's the trade thing that stops it being enjoyable - not being able to sign other American players freely stops it being fun.
And not being able to sign foreign players because you used all your slots. And still the board wants you to spend the initial transfer budget.
My solution usually was to let my general manager make an offer for me. For example, if a player’s value was at 5 million and I had 5 million in General Allocation Money, then I’d ask my GM to make an offer worth 5 million in the trade menu, and it would usually be a mix of General Allocation Money, Draft Picks, and International Slots. I’d say 60-70% of the time it works, but there are times where clubs just don’t want to trade their players and there’s nothing you can do about it, which sucks.
I tried... And I got it. Took me practice, some retries, some knowlege of USA leagues and routines (and I mean, NFL/NBA knowlege) But, took me a excel help, because I don't like of the way of FM calculates the salary cap at all, nor only the MLS.
And what I discover its shocking: Nor only us can have difficult with the rules, but the AI suffer a lot, witch makes the league surprisingly easy. Mid season in my first season for real and I got immediaty on All Star team Coach. You can pretty much bulid a good team quick if you are smart, scout the draft and use the annual alocation money do the rest for ya.
But, I recomend taking over in the start of the season. If you try to take command in the middle, you will easily find yourself with your hands tied. But, it does. You need patience, it's one of the most complicated challenges in the game, but it can be done.
This is actually really helpful - I'll keep this in mind the next time I try a hexagon challenge run.
salary cap is good though seen in the nba but the 3 player rule makes it fall apart. if the nba had that they can have 3 top stars count outside the salary cap and win every year like man citeh.
I think in nba it would be 1 or max 2 player. Football have 11 players
Every team would have their own Celtics big 3, assuming there's enough people to fill.
remove the cap and it'll be better
Plus, make relegation and promotion available between tier 2 and/or G-League and NBA teams
it's pretty easy to change the salary cap in the FM editors as well as change the baseline for contract values, but it's stupud they haven't programed the MLS salary cap to grow beyond what the league has announced
They have. It grows they further into the save you go
Your my favorite baseball TH-camr, I didn’t know you also had this channel. Good video
Interesting side note (for South Africans mostly) South African legend, Jomo Sono played in the New York Cosmos team with Pele and later went on to open his own football club, Jomo Cosmos
4:20 I'm convinced you're the first person ever to call Gerd Müller by his full legal name lol
I refused to believe, that his name isn’t just gerd
It's like someone calling Berti Vogts Hans-Hubert..
I love MLS and have probably been to over 300 mls games over 15 years. If the league continues to improve at the rate it is, more dpi/higher salary caps are inevitable.
No because the MLS is not made to compete internationally
We definitely need a part 2 of this topic.
Coming up soon!
I hate the idea that MLS doesn't have promotion/Relegation because their isn’t enough teams. The League of Ireland runs a promotion/relegation system with just 20 teams, ten in the top/Premier Division,ten in the second/First Division
I could see the only relegation system happening to players only. Like in Major League baseball, if a player is playing bad there team sends them down a level.
american sports is all about viewership for ads and hype, if a team relegates the's a real risk of the low viewership in the lower league which advertisers despise and losing "hype" which could damage the brand and franchise. imagine they implement relegation and your team is the first to relegate, it'll stain the brand history.
Its USA, and they also have have several leagues, its impossible to not have at least a 10-team league to act as a second divison, third etc.
@@basementsage1443 well many leagues dont even have a second league, like Hockey or the NFL. Most of the smaller leagues are just practice leagues for the top teams. They hardly even have fans. So promotion relegation just would not work. The only sports league in the USA with semi promotion relegation is College Football.
Classic little islander... you try traveling across the country as a lower division team with lower division money. This isn't Ireland or England where a 4hour trip is considered a holiday.. What happens when all the teams in the northeast get relegated? Guess you can drive 14hrs ONE way to watch a top division match.... tough luck sonny! Can you imagine Messi having to fly into Des Moines Iowa Airport? 💀
I would love a database that takes almost all the MLS-ness out of the MLS and makes it more European. Keep the conferences, but let me sign who I want to sign without all the fuss of being like "you don't have the money to do that" when in fact, as a club worth a billion dollars, I in fact do have the money to sign who I want. Remove the registration rules, too, they're just obstacles to fun.
I agree
Good video, love seeing footage of the NASL! I think eventually a big North American league will break itself into upper and lower divisions and have promotion and relegation between them. Probably the NBA, because they're doing a European-style in-season tournament, and the league is already divided into an upper and lower tier based on who pays the luxury tax and who tanks. If the owners get some data that says more people will tune in and buy tickets if there is a pro/rel-like system. they will make the change.
Even when I stick it out and have a few seasons in MLS the reason I quit the save time and time again is ..... youth development. For me that is a major part of why I play and MLS just doesn't do 'youth development'.
I wanted to do a San Jose save because I’m a San Jose fan and 2 hours in I was so incredibly lost I just gave up and did a save with a Mexican team instead
It's kind of telling that the last Team USA player that played full time in MLS was Landon Donovan.
That's not true? In the United States' last call up (March 24, 2024 v. Mexico). The United States squad had 4 MLS players (Sean Johnson, Miles Robinson, Shaq Moore, and Timothy Tillman). In the 2022 FIFA World Cup, the United States had 8 MLS players (Sean Johnson, Kellyn Acosta, DeAndre Yedlin, Shaq Moore, Cristian Roldan, Jordan Morris, Aaron Long, Jesus Ferreira, and Walker Zimmerman).
Great stuff. Would like more soccer content looking into topics such as these.
Much of the video pointed out MLS' real life issues...and I can't argue with them, but why managing the MLS in FM sucks was not talked about enough. I can't tell if the issue is poor SI programing or a limitation of FM "operating system" but vanilla MLS in FM always has bugs, some of which have been knowingly carried over by SI from one version of FM to the other. (Think about that for a second) The issue with FM is that they attempted to replicate the unique MLS rules and had to "hard code" not just MLS but CONCACAF also. For example, the video talked about using "modded" databases to get a good American league experience, but because of the hardcoding that SI has done all of those modded databases that I've tried (or I created myself in the past) have issues because of various issues caused by the hardcoding. For example, you can "retire" the MLS in it's current form and recreate a new top American division, but that new American league has to have at least 24 teams in it otherwise the new league will not be be able to play in CONCACAF Champions League. Then because of the previous hardcoding of player contracts there are contract issues with the modded leagues. Anyone who has tried to mod the MLS or American soccer will tell you that the "hardcoding" impacts the "new" league many times in unexpected ways.
SI could help with this issue by giving us a "generic" MLS...along the lines that other soccer video games do because you don't see anyone else trying to implement the correct MLS rules in their game. What I mean by that is just give us a league that has no hardcoding, one were we can edit the league and make it what we want. I mean if they could code the MLS correctly I'd deal with the rules and play the league. But they've really NEVER been able to do that. SI clearly just doesn't give a crap about about the MLS, otherwise they would fix the bugs that have been carried over from previous versions.
Sometimes im like nahh i dont want to sell my 60 mill striker and my first round pick for a guy that has played 0 games and costs 1mill
I like using a database that turns US soccer into more of a pyramid style that also changes alot of the rules to be more like england as well
just curious about the territorial rights, how come we have 2 New york based teams then?
The Mets were formed because there was a threat to form a third major league around 1959 - 1960. They decided to stick a new National League team in New York to prevent another league from sticking a team out there.
They took that step because it was clear that there was a market for more than one baseball team in New York. There had been 3 there before the Giants and Dodgers went west.
The Yankees, by the way, only showed up in New York as part of the fighting between the American and National Leagues in 1901 and 1902. Ban Johnson wanted to stick a team in New York to challenge the New York Giants. Once again, it was the accident of history that caused this to happen.
You can find more on my baseball page: baseballreplayjournal.substack.com
Is discovery fees a thing in fm24 as well?
It's difficult. Takes some time to built the squad the way you want. There's a ton of parity so the team with most money means nothing. I get why FM players don't like it. It takes a lot of work.
Wow you're complaining about there being parity??? Isnt that what we all want..a challenge! If you want ezness just go manage PSG.
I truly think if they just did what we do in Europe they would be fine
Just create an amateur league and grow from there ... Easy in 1 or 2 decades you will have a amazing atmosphere with 1 first divisions and at least 4/5 leagues deep
You already have the players development kinda sorted with university sports ... So the love for the game would win
In Europe love for football moves the game, not money ... Money just win inside the game, doesn't create it
The interesting thing is that the United States did have amateur leagues, once upon a time. There were amateur and semipro regional leagues all across the country.
The American Soccer League was an attempt in the 1920s by big business interests to turn everything professional. They abandoned it once the money started to dry up.
The NASL came in during the mid-1960s, and was another attempt by big business to completely ignore the actual history of the sport in the United States and just dump money on top of everything. It was built up quickly, and fell apart just as fast.
I agree with you. I think that a European system would absolutely work in the United States, if it were given the chance to develop and flourish. The frustration is that there's this constant emphasis and demand for quick profits. If we had a little bit of patience, things would work out just fine.
The US has lower tier football, but unfortunately the US Soccer Federation has intentionally hamstrung it in favour of the MLS, designating it a 2nd tier competition. The USL Championship and USL League One are 2nd and 3rd tier competitions with 24 and 12 teams in it, with promotion/relegation between the competitions. Adjacent to the 3rd tier competition is also the National Independent Soccer Association, another professional league with 9 teams. It is also national.
The US has a framework that, should the franchise system be reworked and promotion/relegation be implemented, it could have a very rich, deep, league system that would create more local professional teams that would make the sport so much more accessible for fans, but because the MLS benefits so heavily from the closed shop franchise system, they'd never agree to any changes that would hinder their ability to make money.
I know us have other leagues apart from the mls
But they are different competition
Now only the fans have the power to change that
I not to family with the usl, i don't know what is different from European leagues ... But if similar, just make usl fan base bigger
And specially, making the young players in favor of the usl over msl and slowly it will overtake msl
If the fans feel connected to the club and have some power over his future, it will be almost like a religion
@@danielevensen84 The ASL failed because the Scottish immigrants who were running it got into a fight and would rather destroy the league than lose.
As someone who plays FM with MLS clubs, can agree, it sucks.
But it doesn’t work in Europe though
Premier League has been broken for years now
On fmscout there is a concacaf revamp with 8+ tiers of American soccer and custom jerseys for each team
Its not about being uncompetitive. They want to grow the national game and local american talents and the colleges. If they had an uncapped wage system it wouldnt be too long until everyteam had ZERO american players starting for their teams. Once they grow the quality of the young american players they can then allow the three or four foreign players that is pretty much what most european leagues do anyway with non europeans.
If they had no cap teams would go bust chasing success as it isnt sustainable as they would grow unnaturally faster than the viewership increases
"If they had an uncapped wage system it wouldnt be too long until everyteam had ZERO american players starting for their teams."
Yeah - I'm going to have to stop you there.
Please explain to me why other countries that do not have a salary cap (i.e. almost every country in the world) do not also have zero domestic players starting for their teams.
@@danielevensen84 America is a very rich country, and it is a desireable place to live. If they had no local player requirements like England or Spain or Italy and had an uncapped salary restriction, there are a million better players available than the local USA talent so there wouldn’t be enough decent USA talents to play. You can see in England a lot of the best teams only have English players as they are required too by law. Of course a few are good enough but not enough to fill a league. This is why players like steve sidwell goes to Chelsea and sits on the bench and never plays for one example
And steve said well would of been one of the best players in MLS at his peak
Why is it overly complicated and not just a simple copy & paste of other leagues? I'm on about real life, not the game. Just seems complicated for the sake of being complicated.
try the A league its worse
I haven't tried it yet, actually. Sounds like it's worth taking a look at.
As an American who as a kid loved and wanted to play soccer I will tell you why soccer just isn't popular over here.
"dad can you sign me up for a soccer team" me at 7ish years old.
"No, soccer is g**, and you aren't g**. You will play baseball and basketball. Those are sports for real men."
MLS is good only for a journeyman save, not to spend an entire career playing it.
great video! 👍
MINOR NITPICKS:
"I find it amazing that my home state of Utah can easily support three major college football team but only a single professional soccer team"
Utah has more than one professional soccer team. Real Salt Lake, Real Monarchs, Salt City SC, Utah Avalanche and Utah United are all professional football clubs who play in the state of Utah, albeit only one top flight professional football club exists in Utah.
"Nobody in America will pay attention to anything but the highest level of play"
I mean, even though the USL clubs are incredibly small, somebody is still watch it. The fact it can continue to exist means there's room for it.
The Real Monarchs are the youth team of Real Salt Lake.
I've never heard of the other 3 teams, and defy you to show me anybody in the area who has.
The 3 college football teams I'm referring to all play at the highest level - and even Utah State can outdraw RSL on a regular basis.
This wouldn't be the case if the league used a structure that created actual competition between the teams. This is what we get when sports are set up using a monopolistic structure straight out of the Gilded Age.
For the god shake I don't even understand mls what is draft and all those not for me I'm never playing it
The title could have been why MLS league is shit as well
Utah jazz just gets skipped i guess 😅
I think these are some of the things that make mls fun to manage.
Playing a US pro/rel patch isn't particularly fun either.
Salary cap is the only good thing in American sports! Because european football is out of control! So many teams dont make any money because of the inlfated salaries and transfer fees. Salary cap should be implimented across europe. Salary cap would help competitiveness, not the other way around. At least in NHL (hockey) is more competitive now that you need to let go some of your star players because you want to sign another start player to a bigger contract but cant fit it under the cap. It's not just the money why American players come to europe. It's because we have the best leagues here. Same way our hockey and basketball players want to go to NHL and NBA.
If I was running European football I would impliment at least a soft salary cap and make every league adopt the german 50+1 rule. No more country own clubs ruining competition! And if the european football players dont like a salary cap they can f*ck off to Saudia Arabia for all I care.
I feel like this is more an MLS rant than an explanation of why it’s unfun in FM
The reason why it's not fun in FM is because of how it's structured in real life. FM tries to replicate that structure, turning your FM save into a chore.
I find it really fun lol
Not even close to be the richest country in the world. Still bullcrap rules. Played 4 seasons with Seattle. It gets more clear and better after a season or two when the rules get cemented in your memory but I will never again play in the US.
The $100,000 a week salary cap alone is horrible, lol. I don't think I can stand doing another season of MLS.
@@danielevensen84 I right there with you brother
It isn't that hard. I really like the MLS and those rule. A different culture, have to respect that.
I am 12 years into my MLS save. I religiously watch MLS so it’s easy for me. I’ve won everything there is to win. Just love the league. But it took me 2 years (FM 20/21) to understand rules on game and IRL. Can imagine for others who are casual is insanely difficult.
well its not being a "casual" thats the issue, its the fact that the rule set is so foreign to any other football league
As an MLS fan, I enjoy the accuracy of the rules. HOWEVER, the rules + GAM/TAM + contract types, all break the game eventually
I tried life in the MLS in FM22.
Won the title with San Jose.
Never did it again. It was VERY annoying to deal with!
Salary cap is great. It is the future of european football too. Coming to england in 1 year.
Me when I’m fucking delusional
So, MLS is everything except sport
socialism league
Lol. It is funny how we (the US) tout a "free market" but yes...our sports leagues, especially soccer are not run that way.
1:31 XD you're not even in the top 5 richest countries in the world lol
LOL....I think he was referring to the fact that he US has had the top economy in the world for awhile which is rated by a country's overall GDP. You're probably referring to the per capita GDP and yes there are a hand full of countries that have a higher GDP per capita than the US (per capita GDP the US ranks around 7th in the world), but all of them trail the US overall GDP ....by at least 25 T-R-I-L-L-I-O-N US dollars and none of those countries actually has a GDP of over 1 trillion US dollars. Hell, California by itself has an overall GDP that would place it in the top 10 in the world if it was a country. The US overall GDP is more than the entire EU so you can see where he was coming from. To put this all into context, every country in the world, with the exception of China, trailed the US in overall GDP by at least 20 trillion US dollars. China trailed the US by around 8 trillion. LOL (edited to correct spelling)
but the united states are not a free market, it's an oligarchy
As a Brit Of a Smaller Team The Salary cap sounds pretty good
Because in all honesty the premier league is won every year by The UAE Wearing a Manchester City Shirt
They don’t have the highest wage bill though, Man Utd do
@@GIBBO4182no city do mate
@@harrysher05 no, one quick search will confirm it
the premier league are actually implementing a spending cap in the next couple years
@@GIBBO4182reported wage. City have failed to report their financial budget on a few occasions. 115 FC
I'd argue that my club - Detroit City FC - buck the trends you've cited. No big-money backing, huge supporter base, active culture; founded by five thousandaires in 2012, and now in the second division. But the powers-what-is have been, and continue to be, a roadblock at every turn. US Soccer is a captured regulatory body, as is FIFA. Sigh
Never to get promoted despite how good you get, meritocracy and free market principles are wild in america
yoooo i found a fellow Le Rouge!
"Huge supporter base" That's just objectively not true.
Holy shit that club crest is amazing.
Fellow DCFC fan Lets GOOOO!
In American sports there is built-in corporate socialism meaning that there is a benefit for clubs to perform badly.
There's a benefit, but it doesn't mean clubs/teams are smart with them. The Edmonton Oilers had soooo many first round draft picks for a few years straight and only one player is still on the team. It still took them about a decade to get out of the gutter.
Im not sure that that has anything to do with socialism
Nothing new, and that's good. Look at Premier League - relegated clubs are getting parachute payments. Also TV rights are split evenly when United or Arsenal are bringing much more to the brand them let say Luton or Ipswitch. Only diferencial is how often your game are shown in TV (in UK). But clubs who Play that game have cash splited by half.
@@МиланЖивковић-к9ъfalse, forcing teams to have the same budget, thus making teams equal is literally socialism, that's why Man City doesn't like the new proposals for the premier League, imagine if Man City couldn't have both Haaland and Grealish, they can only have one whether it be because of budget restrictions or parity, one of them has to go to Wolverhampton or Fulham.
The american urge to call everything socialist even tho it isn’t remotely socialist never ceases to amaze me
I only love the MLS prolly because alot of my Filipino regens in my build a nation save are spawning in the MLS next pro league
Yeah - that's one thing I should have said. The American feeder clubs are awesome for young talent in Football Manager. It's like a cheat code, lol.
The salary cap isn't because teams are poor but is intended to promote competition which you can argue works as there are 8 MLS Cup winners in the last decade...
Right. But, if you're going to have a salary cap, why have so many exceptions to the salary cap?
@@danielevensen84 I think they are in a bit of strange position sustainability wise and a lot of the exceptions are just attempts to try and grow the league.
But in regards to competitiveness the cap system does seem to work better than what we see in Europe's top leagues where it's almost always the same clubs winning.
It obviously doesn't translate well to the games but I also think it's because FM isn't doesn't put enough emphasis on ensuring players are working within the rules. An admin assistant who took care to notify and highlight these rules whenever you're signing players or renewing contracts would help massively.
The reason for the salary cap has always been to stop domestic players from negotiating the best contract for themselves. It exists to suppress wages. Competition isn't the intention, controlling player costs is and was. If it wasn't, they'd do away with single entity and allow players to be free agents.
@@danielevensen84I think that they have to deal with the fact, that they are not biggest league in football. The American system is designed around leagues, that are the uncontested biggest league of that sport in the world. In football they have to tweak it here and there to make it compatible with the rest of the world
@@michaelfarrow5817 For Football/soccer the league is kinda screwed but they 100% did it with intention of competition. I am glad other american sports have free agents.
Not only are the MLS rules arcane and confusing, but Sports Interactive also doesn’t implement them the right way. The save always falls apart after a few years.
When you learn of other methods, you find American wealthy situate everything to maintain wealth above quality always. 😢
Why do Americans like to take a simple sport and make it overly complicated....
For money or for torture? Or Both?
Asking the real questions.
Seriously - I've been watching broadcasts of old NASL games, and am flabbergasted by how complicated the commentators make the sport sound.
It's a simple sport. You can learn how football is played by watching it for like 30 minutes, lol.
I think you're forgetting one crucial aspect: exclusivity and demand in this capitalist world. Exclusivity sells, and the reason why American sports teams sell for so much more is that the value of their franchise is significantly higher. If an upstart wants to buy into a league rather than create its own club, it has to pay a premium. For example, in 2013, when Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers, was found making a racial slur, the board of owners voted to kick him out of the league and forced him to sell. Despite the Clippers' net worth and value being at $600 million, he sold the team for $1.3 billion. This happened for two reasons like you mentioned extensively there are far more guarantees for profit in the long run. Most American sports teams actually lose money year over year where they money is made in that sale is where the money is
American sports - the only sports leagues and competitions where it pays to lose on purpose - for several years on end sometimes
The only leagues that have a variety of champions
And yet, bad teams can still be terrible, and good ones can still be good. At the cost of not allowing teams to spend 1 billion dollars to get the best players...
This really only happens if your team is actually good at getting the right guys
@@E_Bailey that's only there to ensure more money goes into the owners pocket
@@superswole3688Nah.
Yall are such complainers, fm player with a 20+ year save in the mls it’s not that bad you just can’t get your “favorite” or “known” player you have to actually scout you DP don’t have to be old guys they can literally be wonder kids that have developed into WC players. My only issue with the mls is that you can’t loan in domestic players and the only way to buy other domestic players is through trades but once you learn how they work it’s actually kinda fun with the draft. But it’s easier to complain so go do an easy save like in germany with basically no rules 😂😭
I agree, really odd that America should have this un-free market system, whereas Europe has a more free market in soccer.
I really hate playing the US league because of the rules. I really hope they copy a better working league. Even if it's sign max 3-5 non domestic players, and have to fill the rest of the roster with domestic only players. Current rules are too convoluted
I just always wished the MLS was like every other American sport and no restrictions on how many foreign players you have. If you want a team full of u23 south Americans, cool.
I watched your video three times and still confused about mls 😂
As an American who loves fm. Every year I’m like alright gonna sit down and do a save in mls and learn the contracts. I start and l look at them and I’m like fuck it. Gonna go play in some lesser known league and have fun. 😅
100% my experience, lol.
the not so secret among sports owners is "competition is for the poor"
Bundesliga is the true way.
I swear half the small youtubers I find nowadays are from Utah 😭 (not a bad thing tho)
Lol - I promise that we didn't plan it this way, haha
This is what's wrong with the NHL. The problem is Hockey in other areas just isn't as competitive, like Football is in the rest of the world. All the flashy players go to the NHL.
8:31 not really... my whole league is losing important sum of money everyday. Until someday it gonna break. So i don't think the soccer model is a good one. Just look at Man U.
The one thing I do, is I try and trade for permanent international slots. Then in a couple years, you will have enough for your dream team, and can rent them off for players or money or draft picks. Its free money if u hold the monopoly.
Off Topic, but here's what I want from FM.
I want to OWN a Team. I want to OWN a Team way down at the bottom, and dream of doing all the things to get it to the top. Maybe I hire the Coaches, or maybe I hit the pitch and Coach myself. Maybe I hire a GM, or maybe I handle all that GM stuff myself. But it's MY Team. I own it. No Board, no one to kick me out. I'm here until I die.
Give me that Owner Option. Let me establish relationships with other Owners, let me dictate what I find to be the acceptable goals. Let me decide if that Coach goes and gets a License... or if I send myself for one. Let me set the Ticket Prices, let me decide if we're building a Youth Academy and how invested we're going to be in it.
FM is great, it's already a really good game. But that's the game I'd like.
It's better than Madden or NBA, because there is no relegation there. You own the Team, but it can never go anywhere... it's already the only place it can be, in THAT one League. But in Soccer, we can go up a ladder, we can go down a ladder... we can go up numerous floors to find ourselves out on the rooftop yelling our barbaric yawp. THAT'S INTERESTING. Being the Spurs or the Patriots, not so interesting. But being a Team that can Relegate, or climb... THAT IS SOMETHING!
It could be a unique and fun save but the rules aren’t completely accurate in FM and the AI cannot handle it at all. Makes it unplayable
MLS can't even compete as the retirement league anymore with the Saudis paying billions
Got fired one saved from who knows where, got hired mid way through the season with ohio won the title. Them immediately quit after trying to understand thier transfer system
Idk playing in the mls made me better at FM bargain bin shopping is so damn fun
Wait, I’m so
Confused. How are Suarez, Messi, Alba and Busquets all playing for Miami ?
Suarez is a TAM player, along with Alba. Messi, Busquets and Campana are Miami's 3 DPs
actually, there is one major reason for salary cap and the like: to stop teams from LA, NY and Chicago/Miami from dominating the league. No good player would play for a milwaukee or minnesota team if offered the same salary to play in ny or miami
one of the few things I like more about the USA sports system is exactly this, it make for a more competitive/balanced league; except for real madrid or barcelona fans, which spanish fan base could possibly enjoy the spanish league? It has no competition after the 1980's, except for the occasional valencia/atletico title
if it was up to me, a salary cap would be implemented in every league
I understand the sentiment - but there's a major problem with that point of view.
Where did Beckham play? Los Angeles.
If you want a strict salary cap, make a strict cap. Don't make a strict cap with exceptions that were carved out for the rich teams to allow them to pay millions of dollars for declining players.
The Designated Player exception was created specifically so teams from major markets could make large signings - which completely contradicts the reason for the existence of the salary cap.
@@danielevensen84 Yep, my point is more to the phrase "the richest country in the world should not have a salary cap in its league"
the reason for the MLS exception is to make football attractive there, but it doesn't seem to matter, nobody cares about in the usa; if it were to become popular, those exceptions would be gone in a short amount of time, like they did in the NBA to prevent steve ballmer from outspending half the league on his own with a new cba agreement
You could just watch how many people come to visit the other teams every week and see how many other Spanish football fans there is that enjoys watching football there. And good players dont play in the MLS unless they are excluded from the salary cap.
@@88balloonsonthewall70 you are mixing oranges and apples here. Good players won't go there because football is irrelevant (and, therefore, poorly financed compared to the other major sports) in the US
And people going to games is also imaterial to my point: why would you like your team to be a punching bag for two teams? Competition is much fiercer in the us sports compared to europe
@@arthur2588aspm Footballers follow the money, and a salary cap takes away money from good footballers.
Football is a way of life here, people watch the games because they love the sport, and they love their team.
How fierce is it really when the bottom teams doesn't even have to care, they wont be relegated and next season they will have better draft picks. The US system rewards bad teams.
This is unironicly a great video explaining how in america the rich enjoy the benifits of socialism and everyone else suffers from capitalism.